Fortitude: Turning Tragedy into Action

The Hidden Dangers of Modern Marijuana: Laura's Battle for Mental Health Advocacy

• PAN & SAM

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What if the marijuana you thought was safe for medicinal use could tear families apart? Meet Laura B from Massachusetts as she shares her heart-wrenching story about her son’s life altered by modern marijuana products. Through her experiences, we challenge the misconceptions surrounding marijuana’s safety and emphasize the urgent need for better regulation and awareness. Laura’s poignant narrative unveils the drastic changes in her son’s mental health, leading to a diagnosis of treatment-resistant bipolar disorder after his marijuana use. Her journey is a powerful reminder of the potential hidden dangers in today’s potent strains and a call to protect families from similar tragedies.

We also spotlight the daunting battle faced by those navigating marijuana-induced psychosis, as seen through the eyes of a mother dealing with her son Nick’s struggles. The conversation touches on the systemic failures that complicate mental health care, especially for adults over 18. From the inadequacies in the judicial system to the barriers imposed by HIPAA laws, families face overwhelming challenges in securing proper treatment and support. Nick’s story is a chilling illustration of how severe mental illness can spiral into legal troubles and societal neglect, highlighting the urgent need for systemic reform to better support individuals and families alike.

Finally, we turn grief into action, exploring the transformative power of advocacy and storytelling. Discover how connecting with organizations like the National Shattering Silence Coalition and the Treatment Advocacy Center can channel personal tragedy into a force for change. Through this episode, we aim to inspire listeners to turn their own experiences into advocacy, holding lawmakers accountable and contributing to meaningful changes to mental health and drug policies that protect public health. Our heartfelt gratitude goes to Laura for bravely sharing her story and igniting a spark of activism in all of us!

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Speaker 1:

Hi everyone, this is Chrissy Groenwegen, back for another episode of the Fortitude podcast. Again. Parent Action Network is the grassroots division of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, and we're dedicated to amplifying the voices of families whose lives have been devastated by the harmful effects of marijuana. Thank you for joining me for another episode. I always like to remind our listeners that I gave this podcast the title Fortitude, because that means showing courage in the face of grief and adversity, and I couldn't think of a better word to exemplify the brave parents and families that stand up, despite their pain, to fight big marijuana and the false narrative that marijuana is a safe and Harmless Product.

Speaker 1:

I really hope that each of these episodes leave you with a profound understanding of the urgent need for awareness, better regulations and the power of community support in addressing the challenges posed by today's marijuana products. Now I'd like to introduce you to Laura B from Massachusetts. Laura comes to us with another devastating story and, again, while the common thread is marijuana, each of these stories have their own spin, and I'm going to let Laura tell you her story, but prepare yourself because this one's quite enraging that something like this could be going on and legalization still be on the tongues of our legislators. So, laura, thank you so much for being here with us, my pleasure. I like to always begin by hearing about what your life was like before marijuana became a factor in it, because, again, the common thread is that all these stories, all of these families, all of these children were normal, everyday children, and I think you can attest to that fact as well. So please give us a little bit of background about what your lives were like before this all happened.

Speaker 2:

My two sons are very close in age and I had very different sons. One was a scientific scholar and the other was a fashion leader, very creative, and he was born with beautiful looks. So all throughout his childhood and early teen years and growing into adulthood he had a lot of attention and, I would say, almost worshipful type relationship with wherever he went and this is my younger son that I'm speaking of now and the social skills that he would have were extreme. I mean, he would walk into a room and it was almost as if everyone was a moth to a flame and he just looked beautiful. He presented beautifully from head to toe and had, you know, he just has that natural charisma that a sports person would have combined with someone who could also work at Saks Fifth Avenue. So that is my beautiful son as he was before marijuana was on the scene.

Speaker 1:

So, prior to the incident, what were your feelings about marijuana legalization, especially being from Massachusetts, where it had become legal medically pretty early on?

Speaker 2:

I had no warning, no type of alarm bells, no type of radar about how marijuana could affect my son's life, and we were taught that it was like a medicinal product and so, of course, if it's medicinal and people are getting prescriptions for it, then it's safe. Personally, I wasn't going to allow him to smoke it, but he had such an enormous amount of friends who did, and so before school, after school and even without me knowing, he was able to smoke, especially as we come from a divorced home. He has a father that lives in the city and I live in the suburbs, so every time he went to his father's house and then eventually lived at his father's house, I could see less and less how much marijuana was overtaking his life.

Speaker 1:

You know, it's so interesting because when we ask these questions and not just on this podcast, but even when my project coordinator and I interview parents and we ask what was your stance on legalization before it became a negative factor in your life and I sensed it with you as well so many parents seem to have this guilt thinking well, I really didn't think it was a big deal. And that's because we all think of the marijuana of the past, of the seventies. Right, grandma's Woodstock weed one to 3% potency. You smoked it to get high and you never thought anything bad would happen.

Speaker 1:

Many people liked smoking it as opposed to drinking alcohol. Right, that's another attitude of a lot of parents. Well, it's not as bad as alcohol, but that's not what we're dealing with today. You know, and it saddens me to see so many parents feel so guilty about thinking they're responsible for this in any way because they didn't know marijuana was harmful or they didn't think it was a big deal, you know. So I always stress that you have to leave that guilt behind, because this is a totally different product that you knew nothing about. So many today still don't know anything about it and choose not to even believe that the product of today could do half of the things that we know it now does.

Speaker 2:

Right and I become very knowledgeable afterwards. But it was a rude awakening and I guess it was slowly becoming to the surface that I was suspecting that marijuana was at the cause. But you know, I also I didn't know until it was over the top obvious. And actually it was in a physician's office in the ER, with his brother and his father all sitting down to the waiting room while he was being committed to a psych hospital. He said there are some people who are able to smoke marijuana and it doesn't affect them.

Speaker 2:

And then there are people like your son and he should have no marijuana in his life and if he does, he will have treatment resistant, bipolar, and if he smokes one more time and you know this on the heels of what had been a nightmarish six months prior, where we didn't know where he was for three of them. And then when he did come back home, he was so bizarre and telling us stories, that with a straight face and lack of emotion, that we immediately were in a state of shock, relief and shock that he was home. Now, you know, because he was missing for three months. But when he came home it was the worst shock was oh my God, he is not well, not just periodically, all the time, and it wasn't going away and we were hoping and we were getting to know how it was presenting. But psychosis from marijuana has no limit. It's whatever the creative mind can come up with for ideas. The things he was saying, my beautiful creative son, were completely believable to him.

Speaker 2:

But to us, you know, like, for instance, we brought him to the ER when he came home because he was so thin and he told the social worker well, I just took my clothes off in the middle of February on, you know, in our cold upper northern, you know part of the region of the country, because I wanted to be closer to the voices and if I took my clothes off and climbed to the top of the tree I could hear them better. Or when I climbed to the top of the mountains without my clothes on and when she called in a psychiatric head of the department, the head said why did you do that? And he said to see what my skin would do. And he sort of changed his story a little bit and it's almost like I don't know they didn't admit him because they turned to me and said he is crazy, but if he's not a danger to himself or others, then we can't keep him against his will.

Speaker 2:

So there was the third shock, like how can you possibly not want to treat this person with an obvious brain illness when you know he's not well? But because of laws, doctors have certain limits and even though it's not like something you would ever consider doing, when someone came in and tested positive for cancer stage one and say, come back when it's not like something you would ever consider doing. When someone came in and tested positive for cancer stage one and say, come back when it's at stage four, that's what we're at with in this country, and so I'm absolutely in awe of how many other families are like mine.

Speaker 2:

When I finally got off of the shop, by shock, I found out about a year later you know, when Nick actually became violent from his psychosis for the first time he wasn't the only one who becomes violent with his psychosis and he had been off marijuana completely for seven months, yet was still delusions, was still having delusions of the devil and being able to speak and hear from some dark entity, and he needed to save the world from it. And when he was attacking his father he thought he was in danger for his life.

Speaker 1:

So, if you don't mind, I'd like to go back a little bit, because you mentioned quite a few things that are really important. This is a story of extreme psychosis, but I also want to go back to you mentioned that he was living with his father your ex-husband after the divorce, and so he was back and forth between two homes, so it was kind of hard to monitor what was happening, and so I just want to make sure our listeners understand that he was young and in high school. So I'm not sure if we had mentioned that, but I want everyone to know that he was young and in high school. So I want you know I'm not sure if we had mentioned that, but I want everyone to know that he was a high school student. Right it is when he told us he started smoking, right, and then, once he started smoking and you became aware, there was obviously an extreme incident that brought you to the hospitals.

Speaker 1:

But what I found interesting, that is a little unique to some of the other stories we've heard, is, you know, we hear a lot of stories where nobody's receiving help, no one's acknowledging that marijuana is a factor. You had an experience where they did acknowledge that marijuana was a factor. So can you tell us a little bit about that? Was that right off the bat or was at first? Was it other things they were saying? You know, the bipolar the this, the that or they went right to. This is cannabis induced psychosis.

Speaker 2:

Yes, he closed the door and turned to us and, you know, introduced himself and he said there are some people. He went right into it and that might've been because when he was being brought in there were eight EMTs involved. He was very bizarre and wasn't compliant with getting into the ambulance. He was at his dad's house and what he was doing was pointing at his eyes and then pointing at them, saying you know, look at my, look at my eyes. Cause he had a belief that he could control them with his eyes. So when he was being driven by the ambulance driver and the EMTs, they put down in their notes this guy has schizophrenia, he's paranoid, he's seeing things and when he arrived, you know the diagnosis was cannabis-induced psychosis as an aggravation of a bum. So that's what he told us and he said the diagnosis was bipolar one.

Speaker 2:

But people with psychosis that includes a manic episode from a marijuana event should never smoke marijuana again, because and it was at this point, I mean we had known that Nick had another incident two years earlier in high school, his senior year, where he ran away from home again only three days.

Speaker 2:

But what he did while he ran away was break into a friend's house that knew he was on vacation, stole a computer and a laptop and had some friends with him and drove around in the mother's car. And it was so bizarre not his, not like him and two weeks earlier we had known that he was smoking marijuana so hard that he didn't do well on an athletic event and he felt bad that he was disappointed in himself. And so I think you know it just never left him the psychosis because that was so out of character for him to do that. He's the most thoughtful kid. So when he did that and he also slept in a stairwell only eating one hamburger a day and I asked his friends like what do you think caused this? And they said it's because when he smokes marijuana he does bizarre things and he says bizarre things. That we don't have that same reaction and he should not smoke marijuana is what they told me as his mom. And that was two years before the really big event when he went missing three months.

Speaker 2:

So I know that it was in the back of my head and this emergency room doctor confirmed it and I'm like, thank you, thank you so much for saying that, because I had a suspicion but I wasn't sure. And he said absolutely, there are some people that should never smoke marijuana and he's one of them. Well, how would I have known that? That was the first time any professional had ever said that to me, and at that point it was too late because he didn't.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, with the development of his permanent psychosis, from the bipolar with psychotic features diagnosis that they gave him, they said that he has an asignosia with it, he has lack of insight. It's not denial, because to deny something you'd have to believe in it first. To deny it. It's actually a symptom of the psychotic illness. He literally cannot know what he's experiencing is strange and bizarre to the rest of the world. So he's completely convinced that these episodes were either he forgot about them or he minimized them, maybe for self-preservation, I don't know, but he doesn't remember what he's like when he's in extreme psychosis. So that's. The other huge dilemma that we were faced with was how do you treat someone who's over 18 with an illness that he doesn't believe he has?

Speaker 2:

causing him legal problems left and right and I don't know danger. Yeah for sure?

Speaker 1:

Do you mind telling us a little bit about where you ended up with these legal problems?

Speaker 2:

Well, he had five open court cases in five separate courthouses after his major second psychotic break and they all had five. Four of them were court appointed attorneys, one we paid for an enormous amount of money because we just assumed that's what you do. Come to find out it was a circus, because each and every time he went for a hearing the judges had no idea about psychosis or about anasognosia and just kept making mistake after mistake. And Nick kept saying you don't have access to my hospital records and the judges couldn't get them and the lawyers couldn't get them. And when he kept getting re-hospitalized during those five court cases, even the hospital prior couldn't get the records.

Speaker 2:

The current hospital couldn't ask for the records of the hospital two months prior. So there's no continuation of care. Even with McLean being the best hospital in the world getting him and finally finding a judge to commit him, he actually the hospital only decided to keep him five weeks, which we know is not long enough to restore insight. It just was enough to keep him stable from not hurting anyone, because at that point he was getting threatening to the staff and he was threatening his father and he was getting more and more explosions of temper that we were uncomfortable with. And then you know he actually had knives that he would hide and so he was getting more and more violent.

Speaker 1:

And with an athletic build like him and his background in athlete, he was a pretty big opponent to not have a good mind to be around Right and boy, is it a sad and scary thing to actually become afraid of your own child and still want to help them and not know what to do. And again, another common thread among all our families is living in fear, not knowing how to help someone. Living in fear not knowing how to help someone and many who age out of being able to be cared for by their parents. I mean this usually starts in high school, goes on for years until they're old enough to well take care of themselves, but that doesn't work.

Speaker 2:

The laws have to change around HIPAA and we are working very hard to make that happen. But meanwhile Rome is burning all around and what's really important is to wrangle these patients that are in the homeless shelters, in the jails and prisons and in the streets and hiding in basements or, unfortunately, getting victims themselves by suicide, and getting them the treatment after they're released from the hospitals, because at that point that's when you need the treatment, not when you're in a safe space and everybody's watching. So, and unfortunately with this population, people who hear, who have hallucinations and delusions, sometimes don't want to be around other people because of them and they isolate. So finding them even is the issue. And when you do find them and you put down rules and they don't like the rules, there's no rock bottom.

Speaker 2:

My son was like I really want to live outside in nature and live off the land, and in New England that's not really that feasible, and so he was just enjoying that freedom of being free to roam the streets eight to ten hours a day, walking and then sleeping where he wanted to out in the streets.

Speaker 2:

So when we told him, you know you can't stay here because you need to go to treatment, because we were unsafe feeling around him. He was happy with that and it's like you know what, I'll be fine. So we're scrambling to even find homeless shelters for him and and they would take him in and they'd kick him out. He was kicked out of homeless shelters three times. So they have rules and that you know. So you see how easy it is to slip out of people's eyes or in front of you know that's what I mean. My dad, he said no wonder why there's so many mass shootings. You know, if you can't catch someone you know from, you know who you know is obviously ill and put them into a treatment program, of course they're going to go off and do strange things, no limit.

Speaker 1:

You know I'd like to talk to you a little bit about because you've alluded to it and I think it's very important for you to get this out there. While Pan became someone you reached out to and smart approaches to marijuana initially, you've also done quite a few other things. Despite what your family has been through, despite the trauma you have faced, you have somehow found the strength to rise above and advocate not only for your son and your family, but for thousands of other families suffering psychosis, and I'd really like to give you the platform to talk about that and tell us about the couple of organizations that you are involved with now and how that came about, despite the trauma that you have faced. And I do want to let our listeners know that Laura has appeared on Newsweek. She has appeared on multiple podcasts one called Three Moms in the Trenches, so many and of course now Fortitude, and she doesn't stop, and she does all of this as basically a volunteer. So kudos to you, laura. But again, I want to give you the platform to tell us a little.

Speaker 2:

I think when you get past the shock you go into sadness and then from sadness you go to anger and then from anger you get to this special place where you cannot stay silent. And that's the place where many parents never get to because they're too far into the anger or the sadness. But because of my supports in place I was able to feel comforted enough that I could move down to that level of okay, let's do something. And how it happened was they called me from the police station the night after the incident and said we have to have you talk to a police victim advocate. And she said to me you need to get support and you need a group like NAMI to go to and you need one that specifically deals with psychosis. And so I did.

Speaker 2:

And it was a little depressing those kinds of groups where we're hearing more and more stories. And I was also getting a little more agitated because it was all those people stuck in the grief and the anger mode and not in any type of ready to do something about it mode. And that's when I heard something they mentioned called AOT and Treatment Advocacy Center. So I went to Treatment Advocacy Center and they sent me to National Shattering Silence Coalition and that's where I found my home and I've been a part of that organization from January till now and every day I'm on the phone with their members and their executive, because she really is about getting these horrific stories out to CBS, pbs, nbc, abc and she's connected the worst of the worst to the right people.

Speaker 2:

And for me that was part of my grieving process that I needed to do because nothing else was satisfactory, and so I've been doing that ever since, did a radio show with PBS inspired by Will James' podcast, the Lost Patients, which I don't know if you listeners heard of it, but it's a great education on what this situation is. And then from there I met so many other women and men advocates and legislators, judges, and the amount of people out there trying, and it's amazing and inspiring. So now I get to go to conferences and speak and I can go to support groups and listen and I'm gathering more and more of these stories together to put together an awareness campaign, because right now we have a spotlight on the, where they are so sick they don't know they're sick and nobody's doing anything for that population because it's too daunting. And as I speak, actually more and more families come out because they say oh, I actually liked hearing someone's specific story, because I can now understand more about my story.

Speaker 1:

Yep, and that's what Parent Action Network is all about as well is spreading these stories and letting parents empower other parents and joining these like-minded agencies where there is overlap in the problem, and recognizing the marijuana-induced psychotic factor and bringing these agencies together to work together to bring awareness to the severity of what happens to the brain is exactly what we hope to do together.

Speaker 1:

And just for our listeners who don't know, there are a lot of acronyms in this industry, right, and Laura mentioned a few, so I just want to make that clear. She mentioned NAMI, which is the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a wonderful organization and, as Laura said, while some groups may be depressing and difficult for some parents, they are still, nationally, an amazing organization that really addresses mental illness and everybody has to find their own fit. Almost every state and many counties within states have chapters of NAMI. So if you are a family struggling and looking for just some local support, you should look up your NAMI chapters. Besides PAN and shattering the silence and, of course, your advocacy work, what other agencies have been helpful to you and what has helped you move forward?

Speaker 2:

Well, I that's National Shattering Silence Coalition, that's the actual term, it's NSSC. So NSSCoalitionorg is their website, nssc4sbd, which is the number four and the letter SBD. And then I learned of Treatment Advocacy Center second, and they've been around for generations now and they have been doing this AOT, and the reason why they just passed the 48th state of Maryland with AOT last year was because of Treatment Advocacy Center. They've been doing this for years trying to get AOT the whole country and we're almost there, so we're picking it up at the end. And then SS and PAA, schizophrenia and Psychosis Action Alliance, schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Society those are great groups.

Speaker 2:

Angry Moms of Arizona, the Arizona Angry Moms. They are a chapter that's doing a lot for laws. And very inspiring to me is Rachel Strife and Crystal Fox, the co-founders. Their stories are amazing and I found Rachel on a podcast about anosognosia and I was hooked. I said this girl, man, she can speak about this in a coherent and concise way. So these are my heroes. So far, leslie Carpenter at TAC has been somebody I'm in awe of as well, because her son was one of the sickest and now she's the legislative advisor for TAC, treatment Advocacy Center.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, well, thank you for mentioning all of those, and Laura and I have talked over the past few months about working together and raising awareness about marijuana-induced psychosis, of course, and all the other mental illnesses associated with marijuana, so I'm sure you'll be hearing more from her and Pan as we join together to continue to raise awareness. Laura and I share one thing in common we're very big on billboards, so we're going to work together to get those billboard campaigns out there about all of these mental effects of marijuana. Is there something you would like to tell other parents and families listening to help them in their journey? And again, remember that most of our parents are dealing with marijuana-induced psychosis. Many of our parents have lost their children and many of them are still dealing with their live, children who are still reeling from the effects of psychosis and schizophrenia bipolar, you name it. So I guess you'd like to offer to help them with their journey.

Speaker 2:

I would say, if you can get past the sadness and the anger and take care of yourself enough that you can get to the point where you can speak. It is what I've been told by Jerry Clark at TAC more effective if a family like yours speaks to a legislator than 30 paid lobbyists combined. And that's what the legislators tell us Whenever we stand up there and we have a picture of a before and an after and I think our stories can make the difference. So please keep speaking, even if you have to disguise your voice. They will do that and your face they will blur it, or your name. You don't have to worry. That's not the issue. The stories are what's going to change this. It's going to be a movement. Then it's going to change this. It's going to be a movement, then it's going to happen by the stories.

Speaker 2:

And, if you would like, there's a course called Ambiguous Loss by Jerry Clark and it is wonderful through Treatment Advocacy Center. I'm just in the last week of my eight weeks of that. Every week was a new learning coping skill. So you have to take care of yourself and nobody knows better than I do that that's almost an impossible task when you're in constant, as Will James would say on his Lost Patients podcast show a slow emergency. And nobody knows what slow motion emergency looks like until you're in one. And now you know you're part of that elite club. So let's not let this happen. Let's finish this in our generation and get your stories out there so that they don't have the louder voices overshadowing ours.

Speaker 1:

We're broken and we're tired, but when we combine, we'll be mighty, so empowering and such beautiful last words for tonight. I love that you mentioned that our stories have power, because it's a great segue into the reminder that we finally have the dates for our Apparent Action Network Training Conference and Advocacy Day, and I'm so greatly hoping that Laura will join us. We will be having our Conference and Hill Day on Monday and Tuesday, february 3rd and 4th of 2025. We will spend all day Monday training and discussing the current issues, working with each other, and then on Tuesday we will spend all day on Capitol Hill meeting with legislators. So we really hope you join us for that. We will be sending out save the dates and more information as that information evolves.

Speaker 1:

So again, that's the PAN training conference in Hill Friday, the 6th and 7th of February at the Gaylord Hotel in National Harbor, and please keep reading our Parent Action Network newsletter, listening to our Fortitude podcast. If you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, please reach out to me at any time at Chrissy at learnaboutsamorg or pan at learnaboutsamorg. Laura, I can't thank you enough for joining us and sharing your story. I cannot believe your bravery and, as you've said so well, the more we bring awareness to this issue, the harder it will be for our lawmakers to ignore the facts and finally put public health and wellness before profits. We just have to keep doing what we're doing. So thank you again for taking the time to be here.

Speaker 2:

And the power of media too, because the media is actually what embarrasses legislators. So we got to get on CNN, we got to get on Sanders and Cooper.

Speaker 1:

So we got to get on CNN, we got to get on Sanders and Cooper, yeah, and so many others, and just keep doing this. So so again, laura, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. I look forward to so much more work with you and thank you for doing everything that you're doing, and good luck with your son and your family, and we will pray for you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, I appreciate it.